New Action: Reward – Boost Businesses

A new NSRF action, Reward-Strengthen Businesses, to reward and strengthen small and very small businesses to maintain or increase their staff was announced by the Minister Economy & Development, Mr. Yannis Dragasakis. It is expected to be announced in early December and will open for submissions after 25 days.

It concerns companies that want to become more competitive through investments in human capital, standardization and certification actions of products-services and / or procedures for the registration of industrial and / or intellectual property. This is the action, Reward-Strengthen Enterprises, with a total budget of 300 million. this concerns only micro and small enterprises.

As the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Development, Yannis Dragasakis, said in the presentation of the ministry’s action plan announcing this action, some reward should be given to the companies that have not made redundancies all this time, to the companies that hire people.

“It is precisely for them that there will be these incentives in the sense of reward, but also in the sense of support for the recruitment of new employees,” he said. Dragasakis.

More specifically, within the framework of the new action, monetary “prizes” up to € 10,000 will be given to businesses that retained or increased their staff in the last 12 months before the submission of the application. In order to receive this reward, these companies will have to additionally recruit new staff, full-time or part-time, at subsidized wage costs.

Beneficiaries of I-Reward – Strengthen Businesses

The Reward-Strengthen action can take part small and very small businesses, except those belonging to the tourism sector.

Therefore, businesses wishing to join the new action should belong to strategic sectors of the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (EPAnEK) – one of the seven programs of the NSRF for the period 2014-2020.

The eligible sectors are the following:

Reward-Reinforce – Participation Conditions

The companies that will apply for the new action will have to cumulatively meet the following conditions:

  • At least 2 administrative uses of 12 months duration have been closed.
  • They belong to one of the 8 strategic sectors of EPANEK other than tourism (Agri-food / Food industry – Energy – Supply Chain – Cultural and Creative Industries – Environment – Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) – Health – Materials – Construction)
  • They employ at least 2 full-time or part-time employment relationships in the year before the submission of the proposal.
  • They have maintained stable or increased employment (in SRM) during the last 3 months before the submission of the application for funding compared to the corresponding 3 months of the previous year, i.e. 12 months before.
  • They have no insurance backlogs and no overdue insurance debts.
  • They have not approved and do not implement OAED programs regarding the subsidy of new jobs, the conversion of jobs (e.g. from partial to full, etc.) in the last three years.

In addition to the above, they must meet at least one of the following conditions:

  1. Show at least one positive (greater than zero) result before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in the last two years before the year of submission.
  2. Develop an export activity with an average of at least 2% of the annual turnover derived from exports of products they produce/process in the last two years prior to the reporting year
  3. Have registered a patent in the last two years prior to the year of submission.

The action consists of the following 2 distinct and interrelated stages:

Stage 1: Business Reward

This stage provides for the reward of the business with the payment of € 1,000 per SRM with an employment relationship that it has on the date of submission of the application for funding.

The maximum prize a company can receive is for 10 SRM (€10,000), regardless of the total number of SRM it has maintained or even increased.

Stage 2: Business Boost

In order to receive the reward, the two categories of actions that follow are mandatory.

  1. The recruitment of new staff according to the size of the enterprise as reflected below: For an enterprise employing the reference year: >=2 and =>5 and=> =10 and = The above wage costs for new job(s) are eligible with a maximum of €15,000 per SRM.
  2. The training of existing staff up to 20% of the total budget of the investment project. As requested by the company in the context of the action and provided that it does not exceed the amount of € 1,000 per employee.

In stage 2, the following costs shall be eligible, but optional:

2.1 Costs of preparation, submission, registration or renewal of industrial or intellectual property (maximum € 4,500). Patent renewal cost.

2.2 Costs of standardization and certification of products / services and / or processes by accredited bodies in Greece and / or abroad. Cost of renewing existing certificates.

2.3 Cost of monitoring an investment project (up to € 1,500).

It should be noted that the company in the Reward-Reinforcement program is obliged to keep the overall employment stable throughout the implementation of its investment plan.

According to the Special Secretary for the Management of ERDF Sectoral Operational Programs at the Ministry of Economy, Evgenia Fotoniata, “The way in which we process and activate the new actions is based on direct evaluation and only on objective criteria, which is why there is a time between the publication of the action and the opening of the submissions”.